Exploring the WORLD'S RAREST Macintosh SE/30 Upgrade 

Curious why we call this the Cursed Mac? Check out the full playlist. It's a heck of a journey! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4xUKkQyY278.html

Holy smokes! This is the perfect upgrade for the cursed SE/30! Also the fact that you can switch CPUs on the fly is insane. This video was totally worth all the hyping up.

Dang that dude's drag soldering is slick. Very cool to see people so enthusiastic about their hardware that they tinker so hard they completely reverse engineer it into a superior product.

...Finally! You sure know how to drag out the suspense.

I like your news site - so refreshing seeing a simple news site, which lets you focus on reading and isn't bloated to hell. Useful on a modern machine aswell

Rare hardware? Now you're speaking my language!

OMG, I was so hyped up for this!!!! Nothing better than a Saturday and some Action Retro

Ok, this is legit one of the coolest macs I've ever seen. Not that I've seen too many of them, but most try to keep their mac as factory original as possible. This one allows itself to be as insane as it could and I would be really interested in seeing Wolfenstein on this beast, that's for sure!

Man this is AMAZING. Imagine if someone managed to make a PowerPC Card that could fit into the SE/30. That would be INCREDIBLE!! Though heat would definitely be a bit of an issue too.

From cursed to blursed

I've been waiting for this...

Still more common than RTX 3090

This mac is even more terrifying than a 5g nano with a large black spot.

That video card sounds like a good idea to get. Its sad to see, but also quite nice to see your Cursed SE/30 has finally ascended to its final form. It was a great journey.

It's the Mac SE that keeps on giving

This is a fascinating snip of history. Kudos to you and thanks to Mr. Bold for his work. Your efforts are greatly appreciated.

It’s a shame that 68k CPUs are getting more difficult to find. Especially 040/060s.

This mac is freaking awesome! I'd never imagine so much great tech could be crammed into that amount of space. :D

We've gone from cursed to possessed! This thing is terrifying, but it's amazing to see how far some of this can be pushed.

Sean, where would you even PUT a video card in that thing? O_O Seriously wish the original owner could see this thing now.

The auto setting works by using the add button which appears next to the list box that says default. This add button lets you add programs that when loaded trigger the speed change.

This was definitely worth the wait

While a greyscale video card sounds awesome, my favorite video upgrades are definitely the Radius full page/pivot setups. The coolest multi-monitor setup possible.

Excellent content. I really enjoyed watching. Must be fun to max that Machine as far as it can go with the org mobo. Those add on cards look to be high quality too.

Would be super cool to see the video card upgrade, replace the CD-ROM with a DVD-ROM (OR DVD-RW!!!) and watch some grayscale movies off DVD! (With audio out to a set of nice speakers, of course!) And maybe play some video files from a shared folder on a modern Mac 😃 Super awesome video

should insulate the sd with fish paper. Sometimes tape can become conductive.

I love the work you put into your videos man. Keep it up.

Oh yeah, I'd be taking a dremel to that heatsink to fit it in. That would totally be appropriate for the cursed mac! Now you just need a SE/40 badge for the case. Can't wait to see what happens with this next!

This is fantastic! Makes me want to do this upgrade to my SE/30 too!

So, is Bolle going to be selling assembled versions of these?

Great upgrade!

I saw the 68k news website on hacker news , and I didn't even connect it to one of my favorite youtubers!

Seeing a processor that close to the CRT which effectively acts as a capacitor for the tens of kilovolts from the flyback makes me nervous haha :D

yessss,was waiting for this long time

How cool would it be if you could put a colour CRT in the Cursed Mac? Make it into a Cursed Color Classic if you will 😁

I'm utterly amazed that you can literally switch CPUs on the fly, on an operating system that never expected to have more than one CPU in a computer. How is it even accomplished? I take it that both CPUs are on (after the control panel loads) and when you switch CPUs it copies the CPU cache and registers from one to the other and then tells the card which one to start sending instructions to? Fantastic piece of reverse-engineering and fantastic original engineering job by that company in the 1990s. Great video.

Wow that's just fantastic!

I was so excited for this

You have an exclamation mark in the PCBWAY link. Great video, thanks!!

That is awesome. The 605 was a pretty cool machine.

Great video! What an interesting upgrade too, it's gone from cursed to...blursed?

Dam that's fast... Amazing project. About the heatsink you can do like they done in the B&W G3 Power Mac and remove some a part of it with a dremel just to fit

i love this video! i love to be able to see this! (please do a follow up, im curious how the auto setting works with the example for why the shifter is there* *no spoilers ;)

WoW Sean That Is One Sweet UpGrade I Think The Curse Has Faded Away

JLCPCB cameo in a PCBWAY sponsored video. Haha, great 🙂

Great video. Thank you very much for it.

I wouldn't be able to resist the temptation to go for a cheeky overclock, with a heatsink and fan blowing in the general direction you should be able to squeeze a few extra MHz out of it, even on the worst versions of the 040, apparently the final revision could get to around 50.

this is AMAYZING

This is the best video so far!

Awww yessss. Here it is!

I installed OpenBSD on my SE/30 around 2001 and then thought about the futility of such an accomplishment considering I had an IBM Power 5 based server on order that would run Suse Linux 11, AKA, a real machine running a top OS.

seeing that old website reminded me of the OG spacejam website - what a beautiful time-capsule!

I've been running mini vMac with a Mac plus rom and some stuff goes too fast! I've got my system 6.0.8 (mini vMac), then my system 7.5.3 (Basilisk II) and I'm waiting on a Mac mini (2011) to run Sheepshaver for PPC emulation! Macintosh garden is amazing with all the downloads you can get for retro Macs! Wow! this is about the coolest thing I've ever seen! Love old macs. I did work experience at a Mac store when I was 15... The technician I was working with opened up a Mac all in one, can't remember if it was a mac plus or se but he touched the crt at the back and got a shock!

Love that single bit asteroid picture

You could immediately tell that it was running off the 68040. What an amazing difference.

Surely this could be very intense!

This is so cool!

I waited so long for this video!

Totally get that video card!

Loved it! I’m also an accelerator freak. I got a PerformerPro for my Classic, but I could not install it because I’m moving and I’ll have to wait till I set to the new home.

This reminds me of my 68k dream machine. A seamless fusion of the Macintosh SE, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, Atari Jaguar, Sega Genesis (Mega Drive), and so on... Just merged into one machine as if it were always meant to be that way. Unfortunately, the machines are all so different that it just wouldn't actually happen IRL. The only thing they have in common is the 68000-family processor at their heart.

very cool that would be a great up grade for my Mac Se/30

Just checked the 68k thread you linked to, looks like it went dead at the beginning of February. Is the project still happening? What’s happening regarding availability?

Great vid! But why have you put on that Apple-Sticker? Have i missed out on sth? Idk but with the oroginal logo it looks better i thibk

Amazing!

Great! subbed!

you should definitely try chuck in a colour CRT in that thing

I had that micron card, it was awesome. It’s only flaw was every 6 months or so you had to pull it off the CRT and clean the connectors.

Now I want an "Improved Clone" of the GPU in the original XBOX. Something that would be both Pin-and-Binary compatible with the original, but a lot more powerful.

Getting more insane every time.

Now for an 040 with a faster clock oscillator…one wonders is the 060 is compatible with the 040 architecture.

Most of the 040 speed comparisons I’ve seen have been on Amigas, good to know the difference is about the same on a classic Mac!

If i recall correctly from my days with a Carrera '040 accelerator... 030 is the original motherboard CPU. 040 Medium is the 68040 with some caching disabled for compatibility with a handful of janky apps that had trouble with the 68040. 040 Fast is the 68040 with caches fully enabled.

Sorry if this is off topic, but thank you so much for Frogfind. You actually gave me a reason to connect my retro PC to the internet.

Hi, new viewer here. I have a question: What makes this Mac “cursed?”

what an amazing mod! did I miss them saying if it was available for purchase?

I bought my Mac Plus that very year and a brand new IIci 2 years later. There was also a company called Sonnet which made CPU accelerators. I think they are still around.

I would love to see that Mac upgraded to full greyscale. If you haven’t already, you should make it your mission to make the cursed Mac the most powerful Mac possible that can fit into that form factor.

This was worth the wait and anticipation, I meant to comment this a while ago but didn't for some reason

You need a Micron Xceed with the grayscale adapter in this, its the only way.

I used to browse the web on an unmodified SE/30. Even using the Lynx text-only browser while dialed up to a university Unix server, it was far from optimal. Thankfully by the time I actually had to use the graphic web in the 90s my college roommate had handed me down his Power Mac 6100 which was a considerable improvement.

How the Auto setting works it that you have to tell the control panel with which app it needs to automatically throttle down. That's why you have a list below that with an Add button. You have to explicitly tell it which app it auto throttles with. It's not obvious at first, but the list grays out when you take it out of Auto mode.

that was fun!

With a 256 color video card you can even play DOOM (very slowly) on a stock SE/30. I'd love to see how this performance upgrade handles it!

Whoa, take my money Bolle! 💵💵💵

i wanna see a color screen se/30. that'd be sicko!

That's an incredible accelerator combo. Processor and ethernet with space for video -- fantastic.

The Quadra 605 was my first mac, got it from sam ash here in nyc...

This is such good news. I want one really bad, and I think there are enough people out there who do to go into mass production on this, rather than just a hobbyist project.

I love the cursed SE/30!

FINALLY!

Fried Mac, extra crunchy!

the link to the 68k site for the card just goes to the homepage, is there a better link out there to the article for these upgrades?

The Carrera Auto mode isn’t auto. It is preset, you have to add the different programs to the list I reckon.

I have a Micron on my SE/30, but the grayscale adapter is nowhere to be seen. They're as rare as you can get. I had some emails from the original owner of this SE/30 I have where he spoke to Micron themselves asking about compatibility with Mac OS 7.5.5, which was absent. I can't get any of the original files anymore (OG 250MB Quantum HDD died), but I remember the answer was "only runs on 7.5.3 rev 2", so if you happen to get one, keep that in mind. I don't think anyone has made any hacked drivers for newer version of Mac OS, and the original files are already a nightmare to find, so keep that in mind if you happen to get one. Even if you can't get the grayscale adapter, the Micron can output to a secondary monitor on it's own, in glorious 640x480, 256 colors! I think that's very awesome by itself!

You should just modify that heatsink and use it now, immediately. Either cut it to contour, or just cut some fins short, it'd work. Also, does "Medium" speed do the same thing with the video clip sound issue?

I had a hard disk upgrade for the mac 512 which allowed to connect a hard disk. Since there were no scsi ports it clipped to the buses on the mainboard. Crazy times

Hi Sean - wow, nice! Neat that the accelerator fit and looks like you'll be able to sink the heat from the CPU, even though it's close the the CRT. Amazing that the Carrera control panel lets you change CPU settings without a reboot. 27:10 By my calculations from this Speedometer result, your machine's CPU rates 1.37x the speed of my A-Max/Amiga/68040-based Hackintosh from 1991 using Mac Plus ROMs. I've been tracking other classic accelerated Macs to compare performance with my "#MARCHintosh​: The fastest Mac Plus ever?" (68040 @ 25Mhz) and your CPU result here (1.4x Quadra 605) are the best I've seen on an accelerated classic Mac. In the video "One fast Macintosh Color Classic!", Adrian Black runs Speedometer after replacing its motherboard with that a Macintosh LC 575 (introduced 1994), which sports a 68EC040 @ 33 MHz. It looks like his machine runs ~10% faster than mine, the latter having a 68040 @ 25 MHz. He also tested his machine using a version of Speedometer that uses the Quadra 605 as its standard, and got a relative CPU measurement of 1.15. 27:23 For your Disk score in Speedometer, try bumping your disk cache up to 2.5MB, in control panel, if you have the memory. That yielded the highest score for me, also on a SCSI2SD.

Boy, what a rabbit hole I stumbled into here.

Do they have add-on cards like this for the prior model SE Superdrive at all? Cant find the SE-30 or any of the accelerator cards for less than one lung and a kidney anywhere.